She was 105, and the cause of death was old age, said her son, Kaye Dunham. For the past two years she lived in an assisted-living home in San Leandro, where she died peacefully on April 22.

Among other distinctions, Mrs. Catlett was among the first black social workers in San Francisco and was one of the first, if not the first, black person to earn an advanced degree at Mills College in Oakland.

When she passed the century mark and was asked her key to longevity, she would answer "it was the brewer's yeast," said Kaye, 80. "She didn't talk about gene pools or anything like that. It had to do with her attitude. She had a Bohemian spirit and was physically active. When she was 75, she took a walking tour of Europe."

Mrs. Catlett took up painting in her 50s and within 10 years had a piece in a group show at the Oakland Museum of California, and later at galleries in San Francisco and Oakland.

"I am especially sensitive to the mystery of the universe," she once said in describing her work, "the beauty of nature and dancing through it all. The air is never empty."

Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1940, and her second husband, John Catlett, died young.

With her two sons, Kaye Lawrence and Michael Andrew, she moved west to San Francisco, settling in the Fillmore district in 1945. She got a job with what was then known as the Welfare Department and was one of the first black social workers in San Francisco, according to her son. She enrolled in graduate school at Mills College, and became the first African American to earn a graduate degree from Mills in 1947. She went on to teach at California State University Sacramento, her son said.

In 1978, she married her third and final husband, Matt Crawford, a chiropractor.

They settled in downtown Berkeley, where she lived for the rest of her first century. Among her accomplishments was publication of "Black Women Stirring the Waters," a compilation of stories released in 1997. Her own submission is called "Soft Colors, Bold Statements."

Survivors include son Kaye Lawrence Dunham and his wife, Lorraine, of Los Angeles, four grandchildren, six great grandchildren, and three great-great grandchildren.